Loudspeakers

Although our listening was performed at 4m distance, the Alexia V's mid and head assembly was realigned to better suit the standard 1m test distance. Here the Alexia V's forward response is very flat through upper bass and midrange [see Graph 1] with notches at 4.3kHz and 8.4kHz integrating out at greater distance. The earlier, minor, notch and peak at 2.6-3kHz coincides with the upper limit of the 178mm pulp midrange unit, the mid/treble crossover and a possible cone/surround mistermination revealed on the CSD waterfall [see Graph 2]. There is another minor mode at 14kHz, otherwise the Alexia V has a 'clean' and extended top-end reaching out to 43kHz (–6dB re. 10kHz). The notches contribute to ±2.7 and ±2.6dB response errors – again, progressively reduced at 2, 3, 4m, etc, distance but not improved by the press-to-fit grilles [blue trace, Graph 1] – but pair matching is impressively tight at 0.7dB.

Sensitivity, re. 2.83V/1m, is a very high 91.5dB/1kHz (91.4dB from 500Hz-8kHz), distortion very low at <0.1% midband (re. 90dB SPL/1m) and bass extension audibly extended down to a low 33Hz (–6dB re. 200Hz). The latter is a product of the 203mm and 254mm hard paper woofers, with 45Hz-160Hz and 43-146Hz bandwidths, respectively, augmented by the rear-firing port tuned across 12Hz-57Hz (all re. –6dB). However, both this sensitivity and deep bass are won at the expense of a modestly challenging load that falls to 2.5ohm/87Hz (sub-8ohm from 50Hz-2kHz), with swings in phase angle of +32/–57° in the bass. The min. 1.07ohm/67Hz EPDR (sub-3.3ohm from 47Hz-1.3kHz) will be within the scope of all likely partnering amps. PM